Thoughts on recent Ninth Circuit and California appellate cases from Professor Shaun Martin at the University of San Diego School of Law.

Friday, November 27, 2009

People v. Scott (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 24, 2009)

No opinions today from anyone. But lest us working stiffs be deprived, here's something from a couple days ago. To get one's blood boiling notwithstanding turkey-induced sleepiness.

It's one thing to call another opinion by the Court of Appeal wrongly decided. You see that on occasion. People disagree about the merits sometime.

It's another thing -- and it happens less often -- to call another opinion confusing and poorly written. Which is what Justice Butz essentially says here about an earlier opinion by Justice Ashmann-Gerst.

Or at least that's how I read the second paragraph of the opinion, and well as the follow-on discussion in Section C.

Justice Butz says it more nicely than I have, of course. Calling the holding of Justice Ashmann-Gerst's opinion "difficult to discern." But particularly given what comes subsequently, I think it's not "difficult to discern" the full panoply of Justice Butz's views about the prior opinion.